


return to your center

by ahausonfire (thisiswherethefishlives)



Series: Mandatory Team Beginner’s Yoga Sesh™ - The Series [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: A Series About Yoga Ft. Very Little Actual Yoga, Flirting Through Yoga, M/M, Pre-Relationship, it's a thing!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 06:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13698780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiswherethefishlives/pseuds/ahausonfire
Summary: There are certain beautiful, painful things that Derek has come to expect from life.He expects the sun to rise each morning, and he expects it to set at night.He expects the way that his muscles burn after a good practice, secure in his physicality and the feeling of home beneath his blades.He expects Bitty’s pies to be most delicious fresh out of the oven; his momma’s matzo ball soup (piping hot and perfect) to be better than anything you could hope to get out of a deli; and the way that Sour Patch Watermelon candies burn the roof of his mouth.Really, Derek expects a lot of things, but the one thing he never expected was for Dex to take him up on his offer.It just never made sense.





	return to your center

**Author's Note:**

> lmao, this whole thing was only supposed to be a one-off prompt fill that suddenly grew legs and feelings, so, here we are...

There are certain beautiful, painful things that Derek has come to expect from life. 

He expects the sun to rise each morning, and he expects it to set at night.

He expects the way that his muscles burn after a good practice, secure in his physicality and the feeling of home beneath his blades.

He expects Bitty’s pies to be most delicious fresh out of the oven; his momma’s matzo ball soup (piping hot and perfect) to be better than anything you could hope to get out of a deli; and the way that Sour Patch Watermelon candies burn the roof of his mouth.

Really, Derek expects a lot of things, but the one thing he never expected was for Dex to take him up on his offer.

It just never made sense.

Because Dex _hates_ yoga, and he’s horrible about being bad at things, and he’s kind a pain in the ass on a good day. 

(Like. Not a _bad_ pain, but that’s neither here nor there.)

The point is, Derek offers Dex one-on-one yoga lessons on a whim _knowing_ that Dex will refuse, and he doesn’t follow the thought any further until he comes home one day to find Dex sitting in the middle of their floor, stretching out on top of a hot pink mat.

Which, _what_.

“I’m about fifty percent sure that I just crossed over into the twilight zone here… quick, tell me something only my Dex would know.”

Dex just flips him off in response, which- yeah, it’s Dex.

“Okay, okay,” Derek says, hands up in front of him as if they’d help shield from Dex’s glare. “In my defense, hot pink is _totally_ not your color, bro.”

It’s kind of funny, the way that Dex’s cheeks immediately go pink and hot-looking, the kind of blush that looks like it it would hurt to touch it. 

(It’s exactly the kind of blush that Derek wants to touch. Exactly the kind of hurt he’s looking for.)

“Whatever, Nurse. It was free, and I wasn’t about to nitpick over colors. These things are expensive as hell considering they’re literally just something to sit on.”

“Yeah, but, like… you _say_ that, but you’ve also never done yoga _without_ one, so.”

There’s no response to that, just the sound of Dex’s steady breathing as he picks back up with his stretching, and the slap of Derek’s shoes against the hardwood floor as he settles in, and it’s a little weird. Honestly, it’s a _lot_ weird, because Dex _always_ has a comeback. 

And, _look_. If he didn’t know better, Derek would almost be tempted into believing that Dex had somehow found some semblance of legitimate chill.

The thing _is_ , though, Derek _does_ know better, because there is literally no one more high-strung than his roommate.

(No one burns brighter than his roommate.) 

(Bright enough to hurt.)

(Bright enough to lure a hundred thousand moths to their deaths. But, like. Whatever.)

“So, uh. Not that this isn’t _fun_ , but. What’s going on with all of _this_?” Derek asks with a wave of his hand, because for real - that’s the only way to truly encompass all the weird in the room. The hot pink mat, the faux chill, the fact that Dex is doing this all while shirtless. It’s - it’s pretty fucking weird, is what it is.

“Seems to _me_ , Nurse, that _someone_ promised me some private yoga lessons.”

“Yeah, well, seems to _me_ , Poindexter, that you fucking _hate_ yoga. Over the past three years I’ve had to listen to _hours_ of your complaints against yoga and the lifestyle that’s associated with it, so I’m gonna ask _again_. What the hell is going on?”

Dex straightens up at that, and he is an ass. A gorgeous, frustrating, _well-muscled_ ass. Because he’s smirking, and he’s flexing (just enough to be completely deniable, but Derek _has_ his fucking number), and in the early afternoon light that’s pouring through the window, he looks like a god. 

“I want _you_ ,” he starts, each word drawn slow from his lips like he’s making a point, “to teach me how to chill. _Apparently_ that means yoga, so... I’m taking you up on your offer.”

And just like that?

Yeah, just like that Derek knows that this is going to hurt, because he can still feel the way that Dex had looked at him during the last Mandatory Team Beginner’s Yoga Sesh™ (gaze heavy and heated and dangerous), and he can still remember the way that Dex’s skin had felt beneath his hands (damp with sweat, heated from his efforts, muscles working to a rhythm that Derek still wants to know with his tongue), and _oh_ -

_Oh,_ this is a bad fucking idea. This is the _worst_ fucking idea. Because they live together. They’re partnered together on the ice, they live together off it, and Dex is one of his best fucking friends. Dex is one of his _people…_ and you don’t fuck with that. If you have half a brain cell rattling around in your head, you just… you don’t fuck with it. Because the fall out is _designed_ to be catastrophic. 

And sure, it’s not like agreeing to help Dex with his yoga means that something’s going to happen.

The problem is that it isn’t that simple. 

It’s just. 

Derek _wants_ something to happen. He wants to try on the way that Dex looks at him sometimes - wants to feel it on his skin - wants to know if Dex wants that too. And even though that’s not what Dex is asking for right now, the whole thing still feels weighted. It still _feels_ like he’s on the verge of agreeing to everything - _admitting_ to everything - and it’s scary as fuck.

From where he’s sitting on the floor, shirtless and gorgeous and a perpetual goddamn challenge, Dex quirks an eyebrow before smoothing his face into something a little more neutral. The fact that he knows how to do that speaks to the amount of time that they’ve spent together - the way that Dex has adapted some of Derek’s faux-chill to use for himself like a shield - and it leaves Derek feeling more than a little touched… a little vulnerable.

“It’s okay if you don’t wanna, Nurse. I found a couple videos for beginners online, and I’m sure there are classes I can take on campus… it’s not your job to teach me. I just- I figured it was worth seeing if the offer still stood, is all...” he trails off, running his hands through his hair the way he does when he’s especially contrite, and any bravado that was there earlier is gone. 

It’s just _gone_. 

All the cocky posturing and smirking and chirping is stripped away, and all that’s left is _this_ \- this tension between them that’s only really _noticeable_ when all the other bullshit is stripped away, and even though it’s not the first time that Derek’s felt it - felt _this_ \- it still feels new.

And that alone? It’s intoxicating, and it’s frightening, and it makes Derek _dumb_. It makes him dumb enough to smile (slow and sweet and generous) and dumb enough to take the chance.

“Nah, Poindexter. I’ll still do it, I’m just trying to figure out how I’ll get any of my wisdom to sink into your thick neanderthal brain.”

“You could try… _wheezin’ the juice?_ ” Dex asks in a horrible impression, and just like that all the tension between them diffuses into something a little more familiar and a little easier to digest and maybe this will work out just fine. 

Maybe this won’t blow up in Derek’s face, and maybe his heart won’t end up in tatters.

“Alright, alright,” he says, shucking off his shoes and bending down to dig his own mat out from under the bed. “Lesson number one: _finding your center._ ”

Dex smiles at him (bright and sharp and _real_ ), and it hurts. It hurts like an ache, or a bruise, or a punch to the gut. It hurts like the weight of the world on his shoulders as he walks over the shattered glass of his past and his future and his maybes.

Dex smiles, and it hurts.

And Derek?

_God_ , Derek kind of likes it. 

He expects that it’s going to become a _thing_.


End file.
